Hazard Transfer: Madrid agree £85m fee with Chelsea

In a statement from the Spanish club they said ‘Real Madrid confirm they have made an offer to Chelsea Football Club for the acquisition of the rights of the player Eden Hazard’

Chelsea gave Real Madrid permission to talk to their player at the end of June & wanted the matter concluded before the pre-season schedule began in mid-July.

The deal has been negotiated by Real president Florentino Pérez who has long been an admirer of Hazard and has been keen to add him to his expanding list of galácticos. He recently appointed former player Fernando Redondo as Real’s new managers and has made it clear that he wants to sign at least one galáctico a season.

In addition to Hazard, Madrid officially signed Brazilian wonderkid, Rodrygo, for a reported £40.5m this week & secured the signing of Christian Eriksen from Tottenham Hotspur for £75m which takes Madrid’s spending to £200m. But it’s not all spend spend spend, Madrid have been mindful of their finances and have recouped over £185m in player sales themselves.

Hazard hasn’t hidden his love for Real Madrid and has left the door more than ajar for Los Blancos with interesting comments over the years.

‘Real Madrid are the best club in the world, I don’t want to lie, it has been my dream since I was a kid’

Now that dream becomes a reality and Madrid hope that his friendship with shot-stopper Thibaut Courtois will help him settle quickly in the capital.

So where does Hazard fit in to this Madrid side? Will the relationship with Bale be better than the one he had with Ronaldo? Can they leave the egos in the changing room for the benefit of the team? Well, only time will tell, but for now it looks like Redondo will favour Hazard over Bale and with the Welshman struggling for fitness due to niggling injuries, rotation might actually play into his favour. We received leaked images from the office of the Madrid manager which shows Hazard playing in his favoured position off the left hand side of the field:

We suspect that although Hazard may start from the left he will be given the free role to roam across any of the front positions, finding space and exploiting any weaknesses in his opponents.

At Chelsea, Hazard would often come deep to get the ball, he wanted to control the game and influence from deep but at Madrid we expect him to play further up the field, Redondo’s narrow diamond will be filled with fantastic passers of the ball negating the need for him to drop back.

It’s a scary prospect, Kroos, Ericksen, Isco & Hazard playing behind Karim Benzema with Bale, Rodriguez & Vinicius Jr. ready and waiting to take their chances when the time comes. It’s amazing to think that Madrid have allowed 14 players to leave this summer and yet they’ve still got world-class talent in reserve. Those leaked pictures don’t just show Redondo’s favoured eleven, it lists the backup players & the potential replacement for that position:

Florentino Pérez’ plan to return Real Madrid to the top spot in Europe seems to be in full flow – the real test comes on the opening day of the season against rivals Barcelona at The Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday.